Senior Software Engineer II

About this role

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them. It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together. One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform. ABOUT THE ROLE: Senior Software Engineers II at Confluent take ownership of critical backend systems that underpin our data streaming platform. You’ll lead the design and delivery of large-scale, distributed services that must be secure, highly available, and easy to operate across regions and clouds. This is a general L4 backend role used across multiple teams. Depending on your background, you may focus on areas like core platform services, governance and metadata, observability and telemetry, security and access, or customer-facing application services. We’ll align you to a team during the process based on your experience, interests, and business needs. You’ll act as a technical leader: setting direction for projects, making architecture decisions, mentoring engineers, and partnering with cross-functional stakeholders to ship high-impact work. WHAT YOU WILL DO: - Own and lead the design and implementation of complex backend services and systems in a cloud-native, microservices-based environment. - Make architecture and technical decisions that balance reliability, scalability, performance, and operability, and clearly communicate the tradeoffs. - Drive projects end to end: from requirements and design through implementation, rollout, and ongoing operation in production. - Improve service reliability and operations by defining SLOs/SLAs, strengthening observability, and participating in on-call as needed. - Collaborate across teams to define APIs, integration points, and data models that keep the platform coherent and evolvable. - Identify and drive platform and productivity improvements (tooling, automation, process) that raise the bar for the broader engineering organization. - Mentor and support other engineers through code reviews, design reviews, and technical guidance, helping grow the team’s capabilities. - Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement, inclusive collaboration, and high technical standards. WHAT YOU WILL BRING: - 5+ years of industry experience building, scaling, and operating backend systems in production. - Deep proficiency in at least one major backend programming language (for example, Java, Go, C/C++, or Python) and strong fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, and system design. - Hands-on experience with distributed systems (such as event-driven architectures, high-throughput services, or large-scale data pipelines) and an understanding of consistency, fault tolerance, and performance tradeoffs. - Strong experience running services in a public cloud (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including containers and orchestration (for example, Docker, Kubernetes) and modern deployment practices. - Comfortable working with databases and storage systems (SQL and/or NoSQL), including data modeling and performance optimization for scale. - A track record of technical leadership: driving projects, influencing architecture, and coordinating work across multiple engineers or teams. - Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to align stakeholders, explain complex ideas clearly, and drive decisions. - Experience with observability and operational excellence (metrics, logging, tracing, incident response, and postmortems). - BS, MS, or PhD in computer science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. READY TO BUILD WHAT'S NEXT? LET’S GET IN MOTION. COME AS YOU ARE Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job-related criteria, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law. PRIVACY STATEMENT Confluent is an IBM subsidiary which has been acquired by IBM and will be integrated into the IBM organization. By proceeding with this application, you understand that Confluent will share your personal information with other IBM affiliates involved in your recruitment process, wherever these are located. More Information on how IBM protects your personal information, including the safeguards in case of cross-border data transfer, are available here http://ibm.com/careers/us-en/privacy-policy/.